He stood irresolute and livid of countenance, his eagerness to arm and to lead his mercenaries and his knights all departed out of him. It was that curiosity of mine to see the sequel to his stout words that had led me to follow him, and what I saw was, after all, no more than I might have looked for—the proof that his big talk of sallying forth to battle was but so much acting. Yet it must have been acting of such a quality as to have deceived even his very self. Now, however, by the main steps, he halted in the cool gloom of the gallery, and I saw that fear had caught his heart in an icy grip and was squeezing it empty. In his irresolution he turned about, and his gloomy eye fell upon me loitering in the porch. At that he turned to the page who followed in obedience to his command. “Begone!” he growled at the lad, “I will have Boccadoro, there, to help me arm.” And with a poor attempt at mirth—“The act is a madness,” he muttered, “and so it is fitting that folly should put on my armour for it. Come with me, you,” he bade me, and I, obediently, gladly, went forward and up the wide stone staircase after him, leaving the page to speculate as he listed on the matter of his abrupt dismissal. I read the Lord Giovanni’s motives, as clearly as if they had been written for me by his own hand. The opinion in which I might hold him was to him a matter of so small account that he little cared that I should be the witness of the weakness which he feared was about to overcome him—nay, which had overcome him already. Was I not the one man in Pesaro who already knew his true nature, as revealed by that matter of the verses which I had written, and of which he had assumed the authorship? He had no shame before me, for I already knew the very worst of him, and he was confident that I would not talk lest he should destroy me at my first word. And yet, there was more than that in his motive for choosing me to go with him in that hour, as I was to learn once we were closeted in his chamber. “Boccadoro,” he cried, “can you not find me some way out of this?” Under his beard I saw the quiver of his lips as he put the question. “Out of this?” I echoed, scarce understanding him at first. “Aye, man—out of this Castle, out of Pesaro. Bestir those wits of yours. Is there no way in which it might be done, no disguise under which I might escape?” “Escape?” quoth I, looking at him, and endeavouring to keep from my eyes the contempt that was in my heart. Dear God! Had revenge been all I sought of him, how I might have gloated over his miserable downfall! “Do not stand there staring with those hollow eyes,” he cried, anger and fear blending horridly in his voice and rendering shrill its pitch. “Find me a way. Come, knave, find me a way, or I’ll have you broken on the wheel. Set your wits to save that long, lean body from destruction. Think, I bid you.”